Ubuntu MATE 17.04 has been released at April 13th 2017. Here is a review for this user-friendly, desktop-oriented operating system with highly customizable interface and complete set of software. It keeps the same user-experience from the old Ubuntu GNOME2 era while also providing 4 other desktop layout choices (that resemble OS X, Windows, and Unity plus a Netbook-friendly look) and user can transform between them anytime. With only around 550MB of RAM idle use and the latest MATE 1.18, Ubuntu MATE 17.04 becomes an ultimate desktop choice for everyone. I hope you'll enjoy this review and be comfortable with 17.04.

1. Overview

This is the user interface of Ubuntu MATE 17.04. It features double panel (top-bottom) with menu on top-left, system tray on top-right. The control buttons are located at top-right on every window (as opposite to Unity). 17.04 features 5 different desktop forms that is interchangeable easily.

Desktop with menu

Menu is located on top and is in drop-down style.

Typical window on 17.04

See the titlebar: the control buttons are on top-right. This resembles typical window on Microsoft Windows.

Icons on Desktop

The desktop is usable on Ubuntu MATE to place shortcut icons. And also the panel is usable as well to place them.

System tray

The tray is also on top. Special for network applet, the user opens it by right-click.

A bottom panel, bottom-left corner menu, Super key to open menu, plus system tray on bottom-right corner. It has no top panel. If you switch to Ubuntu MATE from Windows or KDE, this form suits you. For most users, I recommend this form for daily use.

GNOME 2-like

This is the default form. But MATE Tweak here provides Fedora Layout, Ubuntu MATE Layout, and GNOME2 Layout. So if you are formerly Fedora or GNOME 2 user, you'll feel like home by these.

Unity-like (Mutiny)

You can also have Unity-like desktop by changing panel layout to Mutiny. Even it has global menu (but in my system, it cannot show the submenu as crashing on every click).

MacOS-like (Pantheon)

This is the reason why Plank is included. If you are formerly MacOS user, with top panel and bottom dock, you'll like this form.

Netbook (Netbook)

This is the screen-space-saving form. It has a single top panel as task bar, menu bar, and system tray. It has no bottom panel. It will suit you while using small laptops. And yes, if you're formerly XFCE user, you'll familiar with this.

Compose Your Own

You can edit the layout as you wish and save it. That would be your own layout theme. You can, for example, adding top panel with autohide function and Plank. Save the result via MATE Tweak.

4. Desktop Themes

There are dark and light themes available built-in. If you need bright colors you will like RadiantMATE (see screenshot).

If you need dark theme, you will like AmbiantMATE Dark.

And if you want the nostalgic one, use TraditionalOK. This is the replacement of classic Clearlooks theme from the beloved old Ubuntu era e.g. 8.04 Hardy Heron.

Even if you need Windows 98 theme, it's preinstalled under the name WinME.

It consumes around 550-590MB or RAM when idle. A very good number to beat Ubuntu Unity.

Details

What eats my RAM the most? By showing all processes System Monitor shows caja (68MB), Xorg (62MB), and blueman-applet (54MB) as the top three.

6. Default Applications

Ubuntu MATE 17.04 brings complete set of software for daily use. Here is a table to display some.

Category

Application

Version

Web browser

Firefox

52

Office suite

LibreOffice

5.3

Email client

Thunderbird

45

File manager

Caja

1.18

Image viewer

Shotwell

0.22

Video player

VLC

2.2.4

Audio player

Rhythmbox

3.4.1

Application store

Software Boutique

17.04

Package manager

GDebi

0.9.5

Control panel

MATE Control Center

1.18

Tweak tool

MATE Tweak

17.04

Webcam manager

Cheese

3.24

DVD burner

Brasero

3.12

Scanner manager

Simple Scan

3.24

IRC client

HexChat

2.12

PDF reader

Atril

1.18

Download manager

Transmission

2.92

Desktop zoomer

Xzoom

0.3

7. File Management

Caja File Manager handles all files and folders for you. Caja has multitabbing (Ctrl+T) and vertical split (F3) features, along with file search, remote login (SFTP), open in terminal, and easy look-and-feel customization.

Caja capabilities

Multitabbing

Split view

Remote login via FTP/SFTP

Up button

Devices list on panel

Bookmarks

Tree and Places View

It's how sidebar is displayed. Left: tree view, right: places view.

Folder's Color

On Ubuntu MATE, user can change the folder color easily using right-click. This fancy feature is very fun.

Folder's Emblem

User can put some emblems to any folder. For example, put Video emblem to a folder containing videos. We know this feature was super popular on the old GNOME 2 and disappeared since GNOME 3. I'm glad that this good feature is still alive. Thanks to MATE Developers.

8. Audio/Video

Ubuntu MATE can play MP4 video, MP3 audio, and also stream YouTube via built-in VLC Media Player. Ubuntu MATE can also play OGG/FLAC audio using Rhythmbox (MP3 support are not preinstalled but available on repo).

9. Add/Remove Programs

Program installation in Ubuntu MATE 17.04 is very easy with Software Boutique. This is the fresh and awesome software center that has clean interface and user-friendly. With this program user can find and install software from Ubuntu Official Repository. Important note: Boutique will offer you another software centers (Synaptic & GNOME Software) in case the number of software displayed here is limited.

Front Page

This is the interface of Boutique. It has icon-centric appearance with simple layout.

Categories

It has a horizontal panel showing icons to represent categories. To mention some: Accessories, Education, Games, Graphics, until Universal Access.

Displaying Software

This is how software displayed on Boutique. It shows each software with a description and a few buttons, arranged in table with double column. Personally I like this way of displaying because it's easier to distinguish one from another.

Details of A Software

Clicking Details button reveals the details of software sucah as license, platform, and source (whether it's from official repo or PPA). It also shows screenshot.

Note: you can run Software Boutique manually using a command $ ubuntu-mate-welcome --software-only .

Ubuntu MATE 17.04 also features GDebi so we can install .deb package by right-click.

10. Daily Life

This section displays some example of Ubuntu MATE instant use on everyday life. This features calendar, desktop search, chatting, office documents, and customization.

Ubuntu MATE provides ability to search file very fast and it can search through file content. This is an ability needed by programmers (e.g. to find some function on what files). Picture below demonstrates how to find files containing the word "latex".

Chatting

There is Hexchat preinstalled for IRC chatting. The main purpose for the users is so they can contact worldwide users and developers on official IRC channel of Ubuntu MATE: #ubuntu-mate @ freenode. If you have any problem, you can ask there.

Office Document

LibreOffice 5.3 is featured as main office suite. LibreOffice is a complete and free office suite that supports both document format from Microsoft Office (docx/xlsx/pptx) and ODF (odt/ods/odp).

Customization

As already mentioned, with Control Center and MATE Tweak you do all customizations. But also it's easy to

add or remove panel

add applets (my recommendation: Netspeed Indicator)

edit panel thickness

edit panel background image and transparency

preinstalled advanced menu (Linux Mint-like menu)

place your most frequently accessed files on desktop

right-click on desktop

You can compare these to, for example, Ubuntu Unity where you can't change the panel or add one there. Desktop on Ubuntu MATE is more customizable.

Open in Terminal

User can open terminal from any current directory by right-click. For formerly another distro users, this feature is important.

11. Programming Purpose

Ubuntu MATE 17.04 brings language interpreters:

Perl 5.41

Python 2.7.13

Python 3.5.3

GNU awk 4.1.4

GNU sed 4.4

GNU bash 4.4.5

And for text editor 17.04 brings Pluma 1.18 and vim 8.0. So user can, for example, code in Python 3 immediately without installing additional programs. If the user needs another stuffs, they can install any of compilers, interpreters, IDEs, and libraries by issuing command such as:

Java OpenJDK: $ sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

GCC: $ sudo apt-get install gcc

G++: $ sudo apt-get install g++

Netbeans: $ sudo apt-get install netbeans

Eclipse: $ sudo apt-get install eclipse

Qt Creator: $ sudo apt-get install qtcreator

Emacs: $ sudo apt-get install emacs

And Ubuntu MATE provides you MATE Search Tool you can use to find some strings or functions inside any file.

12. Conclusion

Ubuntu MATE 17.04 is a good choice for all desktop purposes with instant needs (multimedia and daily tasks). It takes only around 550MB of RAM at idle time is a incredibly positive surprise for GTK+3-based OS at 2017. It means everyone can use modern GNOME2 (with fully GTK+3) on any computer especially the old one (at least it should have 1GB of RAM) and have a good life. Its complete set of preinstalled software is a plus point so clearly we can recommend Ubuntu MATE for anyone especially those liking Ubuntu but cannot choose Unity/GNOME because of hardware requirements. Thanks to Ubuntu MATE Team!